I’ll come out and say it. I liked the new Doctor Strange movie. Apparently, it’s a controversial opinion to have. Half of the people I talked to liked the movie while the other half absolutely hated it. I just don’t understand why this movie has so much negativity surrounding it.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” follows Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) after dealing with the Multiverse problems from “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” He has been having “dreams” of another version of himself and a girl with the ability to travel the Multiverse, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). He goes to Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) who isolated herself after what happened in “WandaVision” for help.

I had to wait a week and couldn’t see the movie when it was released in theatres on May 6, but I was glad I waited to not have a large crowd shouting during the showing. It was near impossible to avoid spoilers for this movie, but I went in only having little bits of knowledge of what was to come. It still was really great even if I knew one thing was going to happen.

One part I had some insight into was the kind of movie I was going into. “Multiverse of Madness” is not the typical MCU Marvel movie. It is a Sam Raimi movie first. He’s known for the original “Spider-Man” trilogy and horror movies like “Evil Dead.” He has many key elements in his movies like the transitions and overall slightly horror vibe to it. This definitely was MCU’s first “horror” movie and with Raimi’s terrific directing style, it works! There are jumpscares, suspense and, without any spoilers, overall brutal scenes.

Elizabeth Olsen acted her heart out in this movie. She was definitely the best part. Trying to remain as spoiler-free as possible, but she conveys such emotion that ranges from insanity to hopelessness… it was jaw-dropping to watch. She stole every scene she was present in as Wanda/Scarlet Witch. The audience can actually empathize with the character and understand her motives in this movie.

Benedict Cumberbatch is always great as Strange… every version of the character. (There are different versions as seen in the trailers) You can tell that the character grows to learn about letting go throughout his performance. Benedict Wong as Wong had some amazing scenes and the newcomer Xochitl Gomez brings America to life and holds her own with all the star talent in this movie.

Of course, this movie wasn’t perfect. I found issues with certain parts of the script, probably because Michael Waldron wrote it. I didn’t like his handling of the “Loki” TV series. He made some questionable choices with that script and that reflects in some of the dialogue and actions in this movie. Even with this, it wasn’t a bad movie.

Why do people keep saying it’s a terrible movie? Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and not everyone will like a certain movie… but “Multiverse of Madness” had so much speculation about what cameos would appear in the movie or what other characters would show up that I believe people had their expectations so high that when the movie can’t (and didn’t) deliver on something like that, they get disappointed.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” brought a sequel to the Doctor Strange series that advanced his character, Wanda’s character and continued on the multiverse idea that has been in other projects from Marvel. It delivered exactly that and it did a fantastic job.